The fall in Canada's wheat harvest will be lower than the 20-25% that many analysts have forecast, despite floods meaning that an area bigger than Denmark was taken out of production, official beancounters have said.

Statistics Canada has, following a survey of Canada's rain-plagued farmers, pegged the country's wheat crop at 22.7m tonnes.

While down 14.5% year on year, because of spring flooding which prohibited planting and damaged many fields that were sown, the figure is significantly higher than the 21m tonnes forecast by the Canadian Wheat Board.

The US Department of Agriculture, whose data set the global benchmark, has pegged the harvest at 20.5m tonnes.

Canada, the second-biggest wheat exporting country, was the first of grain's heavyweights to reveal crop problems, in mid-June, providing the foundations for the price rally which followed the first warnings over Russia's crop later than month.

Data questions

The report, which also pegged canola and oats harvests above market estimates, was viewed as bearish by analysts, with broker US Commodities terming it "negative" for crop prices.

However, there are some concerns over the accuracy of the StatsCan data, which the Canadian Wheat Board warned earlier in the week said, in being based on a farm survey last month, may not take into account delays in crop development.

The board, which holds a monopoly over wheat exports from the country's western agricultural powerhouse region, said that crop development "remains one to two weeks behind normal in Alberta and Saskatchewan", posing the threat that they will not be harvested before the first frosts, which typically strike in mid-September.

Lost acres

The StatsCan report estimated the area of ground which had gone unseeded at 12.1m acres, an area bigger than Denmark or Switzerland, and double last year's figures, an "mostly because of flooding".

The area of sown wheat crop abandoned before harvest was estimated at a further 339,000 acres, representing a loss rate of 4.0%.

Last year, 358,000 acres of planted wheat went unharvested, representing a loss rate of 3.6%.